I've recently been interested in prairie dog shooting but never could find a spot that wasn't surrounded by road and just didn't feel like scouting just for a bunch of varmints. Well I guess it was my lucky day last weekend, I was out shooting on forest service land with my brother-in-law and a rancher came up to us and said "now why are you boys shooting here? You oughta be shootin' prairie dogs in my pasture!" So he gave me directions to his camp and said to stop on by and he'd show me where. So today a buddy and I stopped by and sure enough he told me of some spots. Turns out I'd been out that way before and seen his camp but never did stop to look for dogs.
The first stop was a bust, we had a big rain last night and it was still cloudy and kind of cold. We glassed for about 30 minutes without seeing anything except what appeared to be a few mounds. However, no dogs. As we were leaving the sun started to come out and I hoped that would prompt activity at the next place. Sure enough, I pulled up next to a pasture he told us about with corrals, and after a short while I could see 2 or 3 dogs at ~ 80 yards. SO I uncased my rifle and was gonna set up on a fence post but we decided instead to drive around and set up on a high point that overlooked the pasture. This turned out to be a good idea, as we came up to that spot the original dogs were were looking out were visible at 95 yards by the rangefinder. There were 5 dogs, lounging around one of the mounds watching us set up. Haha, we massacred 3 on that first hill. Should have gotten them all, can't explain a few of the misses. Here's a view:
After that, I scanned the field for my buddy and spotted for him. He shot for awhile and hit a few. We were going to go see how we did after awhile when my buddy sotted another family over to our left that we had probably overlooked for an hour. Well I set up on them, they were also at ~ 100 yards and I drilled 4 confirmed, but we think 5 total. One was particularly impressive in that he flew a good distance when I hit him. Don't think we found that one. Here's the 4 we found at that spot, 2 at each major mound:
The 100gr soft point from the 243 made a mess of a few of them. Notice this one's in pieces:
Here's 2 from a hill my buddy was set up over. 180 yards:
And here's the 3 from the initial massacre:
All in all we had 10 confirmed, pretty sure one of my major hits we couldn't find and we found a big bloody spot on another hill that my buddy shot but no body. Also there were shots we couldn't remember so I bet we killed a few more. The weeds were pretty tall. I was thinking we ought to stake some markers out there as reference points. Anyway pretty hilarious time, I intend to try again.
Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics, not sure why some are smaller than others. I'll try and remember to bring a camera next time
The first stop was a bust, we had a big rain last night and it was still cloudy and kind of cold. We glassed for about 30 minutes without seeing anything except what appeared to be a few mounds. However, no dogs. As we were leaving the sun started to come out and I hoped that would prompt activity at the next place. Sure enough, I pulled up next to a pasture he told us about with corrals, and after a short while I could see 2 or 3 dogs at ~ 80 yards. SO I uncased my rifle and was gonna set up on a fence post but we decided instead to drive around and set up on a high point that overlooked the pasture. This turned out to be a good idea, as we came up to that spot the original dogs were were looking out were visible at 95 yards by the rangefinder. There were 5 dogs, lounging around one of the mounds watching us set up. Haha, we massacred 3 on that first hill. Should have gotten them all, can't explain a few of the misses. Here's a view:
After that, I scanned the field for my buddy and spotted for him. He shot for awhile and hit a few. We were going to go see how we did after awhile when my buddy sotted another family over to our left that we had probably overlooked for an hour. Well I set up on them, they were also at ~ 100 yards and I drilled 4 confirmed, but we think 5 total. One was particularly impressive in that he flew a good distance when I hit him. Don't think we found that one. Here's the 4 we found at that spot, 2 at each major mound:
The 100gr soft point from the 243 made a mess of a few of them. Notice this one's in pieces:
Here's 2 from a hill my buddy was set up over. 180 yards:
And here's the 3 from the initial massacre:
All in all we had 10 confirmed, pretty sure one of my major hits we couldn't find and we found a big bloody spot on another hill that my buddy shot but no body. Also there were shots we couldn't remember so I bet we killed a few more. The weeds were pretty tall. I was thinking we ought to stake some markers out there as reference points. Anyway pretty hilarious time, I intend to try again.
Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics, not sure why some are smaller than others. I'll try and remember to bring a camera next time
